COMMERCE - Authorities in Jackson County were continuing their search Wednesday afternoon for the person responsible for writing a threatening message on an East Jackson Comprehensive High School girls' bathroom wall.

The message forced the evacuation of the school for a couple of hours Wednesday morning, beginning around 10:30 a.m.

"They evacuated all the students to the stadium behind the school and had their school buses on standby," Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said.

Mangum said explosives dogs from the University of Georgia and sheriff's departments in Habersham, Rabun and Hall counties combed the building and found no explosives. Students later returned to class.

Mangum said the responsible party or parties will be prosecuted.

"Anytime you disrupt a school for over two hours, this was during CRCT testing, this is the last day of that testing. It just disrupted the whole school," Mangum said.

Investigators remained at the high school during the afternoon.

An earlier posting on the Jackson County School System website described the note as written in a graffiti fashion, stating a bomb would go off at the school Wednesday.

In an effort to protect the investigation, Sheriff Mangum said she couldn't elaborate on the note itself.

The Lumpkin County Board of Commissioners (BOC) recently signed a Settlement Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), five years after an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) audit of county facilities.